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2 posts from April 2013

April 27, 2013

Many B2B companies think that their website must serve every type of customer they have—every flavor of persona. I'd ask you to step back a moment and think about your website audience. Just because your company serves a range of people, titles, and roles, doesn't mean that they all use your website—or ever will.

The elephants in the room during this discussion are usually represented by the CXOs—the ultimate persona that all companies want to attract, engage and sell to. However, these people are not likely your website's greatest fans or visitors.

Why not?

CXOs are:

Too busy

Relegating research to their staff

Responding to referrals from peers and colleagues

Focused on big-picture, business-imperative strategies which most solutions don't address

Distrusting of vendor content at face value

Irritated with company websites focused on the company, rather than their needs and interests

Frustrated at their inability to find what they need quickly

Disappointed in the lack of strategic thought leadership represented

*Note that this applies to CXOs at mid-size to large enterprises, not necessarily SMBs who may wear many hats, including doing online research.

So you're sitting there thinking, well, we can address this. We'll just change our website and design it to win over those picky CXOs!

Stop right there. The realities represented in those bullets above aren't likely to change just because your website gets a facelift and focus. Build it and they will come doesn't apply here.

The course of action with a higher payoff is to design your website for the staff doing the research and building the business case. I have to tell you that in creating nearly 70 personas in the last year, not one of them has been a CXO in relation to a website content strategy.

This doesn't mean you don't need content that's worthy of CXO attention - it means that getting that content to them will probably not be a direct route. Or, if it is, it's an executive roundtable or a specific thought leadership asset that you can place in front of them. Even if they're interested in that one piece, this doesn't mean they will begin trolling your website.

Additionally, if you design your website for an audience that doesn't trend toward visiting it, you've left the audience that will show up with nowhere to go but to a competitor's site that speaks to them.

By the same token, orienting your website for end users will also not drive the results you need. These folks hang out in customer communities and forums where they can interact with peers and get support and insights from experts for product use and resolving issues. They don't care how many awards your company has received or that your CEO is speaking at an industry event they aren't attending.

This leaves those in the middle of the spectrum. The people responsible for researching solutions to priority problems, building the business case and selling your ideas/solution internally. The content for those who sign off and those who use the solution on a day-to-day basis will, for the most part, be exposed to them by these folks.

Defining The Role of a B2B Website

Although websites should be designed with a primary audience in mind, the role of your website can become a bit convoluted. This is especially true when you consider all the departments that have a stake in the property.

I could go on, but you get the point. This is a lot of stuff for one web property to accomplish. It's hard to make everyone happy and attempting to do so defeats the purpose. But, the real problem is that there's one stakeholder that's totally unrepresented in that list, the most important one — buyers.

For each of the "wants" of the stakeholders above, unless it serves the story that will attract and engage buyers, your website will fail the audience litmus test.

Develop A Process for Passing the Website Litmus Test

Start with the personas most likely to visit your website

Do the research to find out how they'll get there and what will attract them

Develop possible scenarios across channels they frequent and determine how best to connect the dots (your website analytics can help with this, so can social media monitoring)

Given these routes, figure out which pages each persona is most likely to land on and where you want them to go next (or what you want them to do)

Build connected pathways with content and storylines

Focus on the problems they need to solve and then (only then) on how your products and services enable that to happen.

Take a hard look at your home page and figure out how to hook each of them when they land there. Is it obvious what they should do? Is the promise of what they'll get compelling enough given their priorities?

Also assess your homepage for anything that will cause them to click the back button (your biggest enemy) and fix it.

Remember you have only 3 - 5 seconds to convince them to stay

Essentially, if you are designing your website to engage Tom, Mary and Dennis, you need to look at it as if you were Tom, then Mary and then Dennis. Better yet - give someone who's not steeped in your site a description of Tom and what he's interested in, have them step into his shoes and visit the site for 5 seconds. Ask what caught their attention. Better yet if you can use an actual Tom, do that.

The turf wars over websites need to end. If your website is not contributing to business objectives, its not built for the audience. It doesn't matter what you think, what your boss thinks or what anyone else in your company thinks unless it's adding relevance for the audience your website needs to attract and engage.

Today, I’d like to write about some opportunities that surfaced
during our analysis of the data that point to the need for sales enablement
that can help your company’s social selling initiatives, as many salespeople appear to be struggling to find the value.

The fact that only
4.9% of the 3,094 survey respondents are identified as Top Sellers is a wake-up
call.

The idea that gaining
access to InMail is critical for being able to “pitch” more people directly – as expressed
in many comments from the survey – is a wake-up call.

The conclusion that,
since prospects don’t like to be pitched to via LinkedIn means that LinkedIn is
not a valuable tool for the sales process is also a big, fat wake-up call.

Comments like these sum up the need for a bit of
intervention:

“[I] don't have the
right content and approach yet to really engage with potential customers on
LinkedIn to gain new prospects, thus new sales.”

“I send InMails
ongoingly and the majority [of them] are ignored. I'm beginning to think it's a
waste of time....”

LinkedIn Has a Bit of
a Learning Curve

I’ve been using LinkedIn so long and so much that the idea it’s
not easy to grasp and use effectively was a bit of a surprise to me. Although
it shouldn’t be. I see crappy stuff posted out there all the time. But I also see great stuff!

The thing that’s bugging me a bit is that the majority of
marketers asked in numerous research studies say they’re using content marketing. Many of them say they know
their prospect audiences well. Many of them maintain blogs for their companies.
And, many of them participate on social media. Heck, social media has been in
the top 3 for marketing priorities in most research reports I’ve read for the
last couple of years.

If marketers are actually doing all of the things stated above, I’d submit that they are in the
perfect position to create a “social sharing” support program for their sales
teams. And it doesn’t have to be
difficult.

Create a weekly primer that includes:

Relevant groups for sales reps to join based on
who they sell to, what they sell and their specific area of expertise or
industry knowledge

A list of appropriate content resources based on
the above point; include links, a summary of key points, and suggestions for
discussion prompts they can use

Include a tips section that includes ideas that will help
them gain proficiency with the tools that LinkedIn has to offer. Just one or
two tips per week that they can master quickly is plenty. I’d start with Signal
and give them some keyword phrases to set up so they can easily keep track of
what’s going on in their area of focus so that they can more easily join in on relevant discussions.

For those of you thinking – wow – that weekly primer thing
is going to be a lot of work, stop and think about it.

If you’re using other social networks you’re already
curating content that aligns with the story you’re sharing, right? So include
those links, too. After all, social sharing isn’t just about your company’s
content.

Sure the group recommendations will take a bit of effort,
although not so much if you’re already tracking them for insights that inform
your marketing programs. And I’d stipulate that you should be doing this.

And the tips for tools may also take some thought and
experimentation if you’re not using them, but you should be doing this, too. The
benefits are profound.

So, ultimately, creating a social sharing support program is
a win-win situation in the end, right?

Both of you can learn together and you can help to ensure
that the story being shared in LinkedIn by your sales team aligns with the
story marketing is sharing. And that’s pretty huge!

Once you get the primer format down, it’s a simple process
to update it each week to ensure your sales team has fresh content and ideas to
share. And, it’s important to remember that appropriate sharing and
participation are two of the habits that Top Sellers rely upon to drive the
generation of opportunities on LinkedIn.

And don’t forget to download the companion eBook
(Link in the report) to read the stories that top sellers shared with us about
what’s working for each of them. You may find some ideas you haven’t thought
of.

And, for fun, see my Madlibs post on Funnelholic where I predict that sales enablement will be the next hot thing for marketing. Seriously!

Coming January 2015

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